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ASSASSINATION" 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



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A DISCOURSE. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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assassination- 



Abraham LINCOLN 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN THE STATE ST. PRES. CHURCH, 



REV. A. S. TWOMBLY, 



UNDAY MORN I NO, APRIL 10, 1805. 



ALBANY, N. Y.: 

J. MUNSELL, 78 STATE ST11EET. 

1865. 



E. 



CORRESPONENCE. 



Albany, N. V., April 17, 1865. 
Rev. Alexander S. Twombly: 

Bear Pastor: Having listened with the deepest interest to 
your touching tribute of yesterday, to the memory of our beloved 

and honored President, and believing that the eminently Christian 
views therein expressed, should have a wide circulation and lasting 
remembrance, we would respectfully request that you furnish us 
with a copy for publication. 

Believe us, very truly, your Friends, 



Thomas Olcott, 
Robert L. Johnson, 
Cbarles II. Strong, 
James II. McCltjre, 
William J. White, 
Edward 1*. Waterbury, 
Ernest J. Miller, 
Arch'd M. Gibson, 
('has. E. Jtjdson, 
Walteb \\. Bl sii, 
Arthor Bott, 
Joseph L. Snow, 
John C. McClure, 

I. P. S. Briant, 

II. D. Leonard, 
II. L. Dickerm \n, 

Iv DlCKERMAN, 



J. M. HORTON, 
J \\u:s Erwin, 
W. 8. WlNNE, 

Jesse Bi i i., 
W. B. Cm 1:1 ii, 
('. IT. Anthony, 
S. Munson, 
Otis (iiiu chill 
A. s. Wygant, 
A. McC. lb sh, 
J. A. Whitney, 
J. Whitehead, 
T. Lamour, Jr., 
Walter R. Bi si 

W. S. Will INKY, 

I'iiii ir Si', \( i i:. 
.1 \< OB V \n Derzee, 



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Edgar Cotkell, 
W. G. Snow, 

D. W. Hull, 
S. II. Morgan, 

E. Sloan, 

J. J. Austin, Jr. 
A. Wing, 

H. B. WlLDMAN, 

C. S. Cutler, 
J. II. Rice, 
Joseph Gavit, 



W. J. Blackall, 
J. Kinnear, 
W. H. Malcolm, 
Geo. H. Knowi.ton, 
Samuel Paul, 
Solomon Luke, 
W. M. Brockway, 
E. M. Carpentki:, 
Jas. Van Santvoord, 
Russell Lyman, 
James E. McClure. 



Albany, April 17, 1865. 
To Messrs. Olcott, Johnson, Strong, McClure, and others: 

Gentlt men : EnclosiDg the manuscript for which you ask, I can 
only hope and pray that all you say concerning it may prove true. 

Sincerely Yours, 

A. S. TVVOMBLY. 



SERMON 



Psalm Ixi, 1, 2, 3. 
" Hear my cry, (Un\ ; attend unto my prayer. " *** When my 
hear! is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock thai is higher than 1. For 
tliou hast been a shelter for nu\ and a strong tower from the enemy." 

To dav our nation is in tears! But yesterday, the 
land was tilled with shouts of joy ; to-day deep sorrow 
is in every heart ! 

Within this temple, droop the emblems of distress 
beneath our country's flag, instead of the uplifting of 
triumphant songs ; 

Like a pall, dismay is resting upon every soul, and 
consternation written upon every face. 

This day. commemorative to so many of the resur- 
rection, wears nothing now but the mementoes of the 
grave. The cry of anguish and the solemn dirge 
alone are on this Easter Sabbath in keeping with the 
measured throbbings of the nation's heart. 

Death, striking at one life, lias stricken all ! The 
murderer's hand, red with the blood of our Chief 
Magistrate reeks also with the heart-drops of each 
loyal citizen! In that one death-stroke wo all are 
smitten to the earth, far more dismayed and prostrate 
in surviving, than he who by it. lies before us bleed- 
ing, crushed and dead ! 



6 

He has departed; ever after this to live among the 
noblest names of the heroic dead ! We remain, hut 
scarce alive for desolation and dismay. At the sum- 
mit of his greatness ; before an inadvertence or an 
error has diminished the lustre of deeds no error 
could efface; at the very height and pinnacle of fame; 
just at the turning point of national victory and glory, 
due in such large measure unto him, and with his 
last public words and acts like Everett's those of for- 
giveness and conciliation, he has departed ever more 
to be enshrined, the lather next to Washington of 
his country ; its saviour from oppression ; its beloved 
leader in the hour of bitterest distress! 

For him, therefore, we cannot mourn ! His memory 
now becomes a precious legacy, to bequeath in 
fragrant words, to generations yet unborn. 

His homely proverbs even, which, had he lived, 
might have been lost in some mistake to come, will 
now l»e treasured as the watchwords of the free ! And 
at his grave, or by his mighty monument will many 
an eye, not only of our land, but other lands, trace out 
with moistened lid the living record of his grand 
career ! 

Methinks I see, not many years beyond, this day 
of death and gloom, now seized upon by darkness, 
with no joyful voice therein, become the star-day of 
the century for joy. Not that this accursed murder 
will ever reverse the present twilight of the nation's 
heart; but chosen as it will be, the anniversary of 



what we lose in him we love, the stars shall sing 
above it. and the' dawning of its light shall give the 
wondering people joy! 

The dusky sons of Africa shall come to honor their 
deliverer from bondage. The land shall ring with 
glad acclaim, and to the plaudits of a generous repub- 
lic all the world shall say, Amen ! 

Why weep then for the dead ! Over these wounds 
now do I prophesy a name and memory for the 
departed, worth the purchase of a life devoted to his 
country; all the more immortal, because surmounted 
and completed by the martyr's crown ! 

But for ourselves, well may our hearts be sad ! 

Like the loss of pilot when the storm begins to 
slacken, though the port is not yet made; like the 
plumed crest of leader, cut down in the fray just as the 
rays of coming triumph gild and make it instinct with 
new power; like loving hands unnerved and lifeless just 
upon the point of giving forth a rich bequest, this 
nation loses him, whose hand was ever steady at the 
helm, though angry billows threatened to engulf; 
whose crested helmet never bowed to cowardly or vacil- 
lating-purpose, and wdiose heart was true till death to 
its intent to make this people wholly tree. 

Therefore, what the nation loses, every citizen lias 
lost! Not only is the nascent and emergent might 
of this republic, on the eve of large events, without 
its proper head and guide, but you and I. my hearers, 
have one man less, whom we might call a friend ! 



Tims is the sorrow of this hour not national alone, but. 
personal and individual. 

You should have heard as I did, when this news 
was broken to a wakened household, how the shock 
fell like a personal bereavement, upon one whose 
friend had been befriended in an hour of sorrow, by 
the hand now cold in death! And what was true in 
one, was true in every family, and they are countless 
through the land, whom acts of kindness by our late 
chief magistrate had endeared to him, as only such 
acts, springing from a pure benevolence, can endear! 

This grief, my hearers, now depicted upon every 
f.ice, cannot then be merely sorrow over the indignity 
and insult offered to our nation in the person of its 
highest Representative. This indignation, flashing 
from your moistened eyes whose big round tears 
standing in them, only serve to magnify, instead of 
quenching out the flame, is not. mere indignation 
against the assassin, as one leading the rebellion to 
this cruel issue; but it is a strong cry for Justice, from 
each heart, stabbed in its tender sympathies, and out- 
raged in its own precious loves, by this most wanton 
crime! 

You loved this man, my hearers, though perhaps you 
knew it not until this day. When first he was placed 
over us, we saw no comeliness or cause of love in him. 
He was, by no means, this Republic's beau-ideal of one 
who should embody its ideas of liberty, courtesy or 
progress; but as we have from day to day, through all 



these critical emergencies, beheld that calm, good, 
generous heart: as we have seen, in spite of many 
eccentricities and errors, that shrewd, benevolent, un- 
consciously heroic man, standing guard over our liber- 
tics, imperilling his life, and what was dearer to him 
his good name; the same uncompromising foe to evil 
and injustice: the same unswerving friend to truth, 
religion, equity, you and I have learned to love him, 
have we not? And forgetful of what he might be in 
many things, have thought of him, and now remember 
him as something gentle, noble, great. 

Our friend; our brother; our beloved helper in this 
mighty struggle against wrong ! Thus has his lament- 
ed end at least, glorified and endeared his memory : 
not with fictitious honors, but by bringing into bold 
relief that secret something in his honest heart, which 
now sets every tearful fountain open, as we meditate 
upon its life-blood, shed instead of ours ; a crimson 
price willingly paid that we might live in happiness 
and peace. 

It is a costly shedding, truly, for the murderer, and 
those whose hands have indirectly sped the fatal bolt! 
We may not charge home this detestable iniquity, full 
upon rebel leaders and their subordinates in authority. 

"Well may their crimes already perpetrated in the 
name of insurrection and disunion, be all that they 
can bear; and yet what is this cruel murder but the 
natural and fell culmination of their greater crime ? 
What is the rank and dreadful smell of this foul deed, 



10 

but noisome smoke, detestable to heaven, from the not 
yet extinguished embers of a confederacy, despairing, 
reckless and abominable ? We may not lay this one 
crime to their charge ; and could our great, illustrious 
deed have opened his pale lips but once more before he 
died, would not his dying words have plead with those 
around him, not to allow his killing to undo the min- 
istry of reconciliation, which he had so gloriously 
begun ! 

We may not then, as patriots, or Christians suffer this 
event to swerve us as a nation, from the course of 
high, magnanimous and holy restoration, marked out 
for us by the finger that can trace no more the lines 
of clemency and pardon. 

By the memory of Washington, which rises at this 
juncture to entreat for mercy; and by the recollec- 
tion of the still palpitating tenderness of that other 
silent heart, from which the vital stream lias but just 
oozed away, let us here, in presence of the yet un- 
buried dead, abjure the curse that rises to the lip; and 
drown, in the devotions and solemnities of this affect- 
ing hour, all utterances of vengance, all muttering* of 
hate. 

Let none who bear the Christian name, for whom 
Christ offered up his life, and who mayhap, were almost 
partners in the very sin that crucified the Lord ; let 
none who would be patriots of truest loyalty and holi- 
est type, shake in the face of a still struggling foe, 
that emblem of infernal threatening, their own red 



11 

flag, re-reddened in the blood of him whom this re- 
bellion slays. For it is God's great sacrifice to liberty , 
not ours ! He will repay ; for unto Him all veugeance 
is! 

But there is one thing, mightier than hate, and 
sweeter than revenge ; it even overtops forgiveness, 
when, as in a case like this, there is no place for un- 
conditional return and pardon; and that is, Guaranty 

FOREVER AGAINST INSURRECTION AND THE HORRID PACK 
OF CRIMES THAT EVER MUST HOUND AFTER IT, IN FULL 
BAT AGAINST GOD AND MAN. 

Guaranty forever, for our children and our children's 
children, against the unkenneling again of rapine 
and brutality and lawless oligarchy, such as it would 
seem this earth could never bear again without an 
earthquake, or God look down upon, without a day of 
judgment close ai hand ! 

Aye, plucked from these gory ruins of the noblest 
man (no Csesar either), that our times have known, 
let there come forth such hatred of domestic treason; 
such curses upon all oppressive systems, whether they 
enslave the white man or the black; and such ex- 
termination of all possible resistance to authority like 
ours, that here, in God's name, signed in this blood 
and witnessed in these tears, Adversity shall prove 
to he Salvation, and Jehovah's watch and care be 
seen, even in this cruel issue brought upon us by these 
bloody men ! Oh hear our cry. Thou God of Justice 
and ot Men ■ 



12 

From the whole earth, our cry is unto Thee, that 
Thou wilt build Thy tower of refuge for all nations, 
on this spot made sacred by the Martyr's blood ! 
Here where our standard-bearer falls, let us take up 
the banners of Omnipotence, inscribed with thine own 
guaranty of Union, permanent and bloodless ; op- 
pression of the limb or conscience never more ; and 
Righteousness with liberty established and supreme ! 
We would quench out all hate, even in this last 
bloodshed — but with the pen dipped in this sacrificial 
blood, we pray Thee, write for us a destiny that cannot 
be imperilled by the lust of men. 

While overwhelmed at heart, do Thou attend our 
prayer, and be our shelter and our tower! 

Beloved friends! I thought not to speak thus, 
when, in the mournful gloom of yesterday, I caught 
the wailing of my countrymen, to prolong their echoes 
into these still Sabbath hours, which God especially 
employs for sanctifying our bereavements, and per- 
petuating the impressions of his Providential dealings 
with our souls. Let our attention therefore turn from 
the unhappy present, even for a moment, from the 
duties laid upon us by this sudden sorrow, to consider 
what God's tide is bringing in upon our nation, as 
heralded in this event. 

Waves rolling over us for four long years, have not 
destroyed, thank God, our trust in Him. 

Our hearts were many times, in that sad period, 
overwhelmed, and yet last week we stood once more, 



13 

we thought, upon the rock! And are we not likewise 

to day still standing there, in spite of this dread wave 
of wrath, dashedlike the raying surf from angry ocean 
over us and clear beyond us, to the very end of the 
whole earth; But perhaps God saw that safety from 
the storm would make us too over confident of our 
security! Perhaps God's eye was watching while his 
providence was bringing in upon us, another billowy 
sea from the far off horizon, and to save us from de- 
struction then, lets us to-day be drenched in bitter tears 
of grief; teaching us to cling to him more firmly ; over- 
whelming us in gloom and trepidation for the moment. 
that as a nation we may not hazard our affairs and 
fortunes ere the storm be wholly past. 

It is indeed a lesson of the storm! It is as if the 
whirlwind spirit of rebellion, having nearly spent its 
strength, and having almost wrecked the ship of state, 
were flinging now upon the creaking but uninjured 
timbers of this republic, a redoubled fury, to destroy 
if possible our timbers, and to strain apart the beams 
and planks which before it could not crush. But it is 
God's own sending! We had nailed the flag aloft be- 
fore His time. Before our country was atloat, our 
booming cannon had exulted in the victory — and well 
Ihey might, had we remembered that the danger was 
not over! but to this remembrance the Almighty is 
now calling us ; to the lookout he bids us climb again ; 
to shot our guns for warfare, rather than tor premature 



14 

forgetfulness of danger, he now loudly issues his com- 
mand ! 

Let us then hear his voice, and gird ourselves to 
meet our coming duty conscientiously and manfully ! 
Let the labor which our fallen leader has begun, be in 
our hands completely and well done ! 

Let this mourning nation, in the weeds of its dis- 
tress, prepare for a persistent and unflinching resist- 
ance to unrighteousness of every form. 

Made sensible to-day of the •solemnity of life; 
brought from the festive glare of a triumphant jubilee, 
in one short week into the presence of the gory corse 
of him, in whom that nationality which we thought 
safe was vested ; being in an instant as it were, lifted 
from the highest pinnacle of happiness, to be dashed 
to deepest melancholy, who does not in such an hour, 
feel the Almighty's hand, and the Almighty's power ? 
Who then can for a moment, fail to feel that all our 
future is with him? who, in this solemn crisis, will not 
pray that the Omnipotent Jehovah will shelter and 
support this nation as his own ? lie heralds move- 
ments of his mercy, even in this event, which now ap- 
pears so ominous ! 

Hidden under the assassin's steel, was some divine 
message, warning and instruction for this, as yet. not 
fully ripened people. 

He, in this event, makes us remember Him, that we 
may put our trust implicitly above ! For God designs 



15 

to make of us a nation for his praise and the extension 
of his name. He treats us in this solemn chastisement, 
as he has in all the rest, that like the other nations by 
whom he has worked out the progress of the Christian 
faith and pure ideas, in centuries now past — we too 
may do his will ; Even Israel, his chosen, had no Moses 
for her entrance to the promised land: God saw 
'twere hest that she should rather venerate the 
memory of Moses dead, than disobey and thwart him 
living. Therefore Moses heard hut the shouts of those 
whom he had led to Canaan's border, and was buried, 
with his eyes just resting on the glorious land to which 
another was to lead the tribes. 

It cannot for a moment be supposed that God pre- 
vented Moses from completing his great work, solely 
as a punishment for his one delinquency. Was it 
not rather to give the blessing of his glorious memory, 
and to augment the power of his word, that this great 
wonder-worker simply saw the land and died? 

So too upon the pages of more modern times, the 
glorious William of the Dutch Republic (one, in many 
aspects, like our own lamented dead) was suffered by 
Almighty God to fall, just on the threshold of success, 
that in the days and years that followed his assassina- 
tion, a far mightier destiny might be wrought of God 
for his beloved land. 

Already were there signs of some hostility to his 
policy among his friends: signs that might have after- 



16 

ward convulsed the new Republic in a civil Avar, 
instead of leaving them united against a common foe 
without. 

But dying, William the Silent's name, under God, 
became a tower of strength; the rallying cry of a 
beleaguered people; their grand beacon, lighting them 
down through the coming century to a glorious end. 

And who knows but in this sad disaster which to- 
day drapes every loyal heart in gloom, God meaneth 
good ? 

We may not say that we can see the blessing to 
arise from this unmitigated semblance of disaster. 

No human mind dare say that Abraham Lincoln 
dead, will surely prove a host, instead of but a single 
voice and arm ! And yet the strange analogies of his- 
tory, together with the gracious benedictions which 
have been already shed upon us from on high, reveal 
at least a source of consolation, upon which we may 
lay hold. 

This surely we may know, that if this nation shall 
be driven nearer to Jehovah by this dire calamity ; if 
in still more losses, should more lives such as our 
honored Secretary whom the nation could ill spare, 
be sacrificed, we are made to rest on God instead of 
man, who will deny the mercy of the Lord in this 
appaling and atrocious culmination of the fury so 
long loose in our beloved land. 

Behold then, liirht behind the cloud ! Even in this 



17 

darkness, which as a cloud somewhat obscures Jehovah 
from us, as from our enemies, lie may be a pillar of 
destruction unto them, and light to us! 

We can but cry to Him, and let our agonized peti- 
tions rise, for shelter and support. 

Comfort ye, therefore, one an other with these words.. 

For if there lie any comfort, while all who see this 
murder say, " There has been no such thing done or 
seen, unto this day'' — it' it be possible to mitigate this 
dreadful spectacle of the days of Robsepierre and 
Philip the Second, transferred to our own century and 
shore — if in any sense, there can be a cessation of our 
natural grief in losing one we had so fully learned 
to love, then let sorrow now give way to trust — let 
the clouds part that we may sec God sitting in su- 
preme, unchanging love and power, our refuge and 
our friend. 

Lift up the eyes to him this day ! Perchance this 
nation, upon bended knee, in sackcloth and in ashes, 
may yet keep another day not very distant, of thanks- 
giving, prayer and praise ! Let our late President's 
announcement, that a day for giving God the praise 
would soon be set apart, hallow the day already ap- 
pointed by our Governor as a day of prayer: and 
though that dead hand which has so often given days 
of worship to this people, will not sign the pro- 
clamation, though the lips which have so lately said. 
3 



18 

" Oh yes, I love the Saviour," 1 will not join in prayer 
or praise, yet when this people conies together, will 
it not be with his spirit hovering near; with influences 
from his pure leadership to guide, as we cry mightily 
to God to hear and help ! And do Thou, mighty 
God, attend our prayer ! When hearts are over- 
whelmed, like ours, in this sad day of darkness, be 
Thou alone our Shelter, and our Tower! Amen! 

1 Conversion of the President. — Rev. J. E.Casey, <>!' Free- 
port, 111., makes the following statement : — 

A gentleman, having recently visited Washington on business with 
the President, was, on leaving home, requested by a friend to ask Mr, 
Lincoln whether he loved Jesus. The President buried his face in 
his handkerchief, turned and said: "When T left home to take the 
chair of State I requested my countrymen to pray for me; J was not 
then a Christian. When my son died, tin- severest trial of my life, I 
was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg, and looked 
upon the graves of our dead heroes, who had fallen in defence ol 
their country, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. I do 
love Jesus." 



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